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Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

nautil.us

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Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#101

Post by JoeAltmaier »

nmilo wrote: post #93

A lot of people have wrote about the ethical considerations and to me they make no sense. Since when did our generally accepted ethics say that imposing suffering onto a conscious being is bad, but non-conscious beings is fine? This is the completely wrong correspondence because there's counter-arguments for both sides. You wouldn't harm a puppy, even though it's (probably?) not conscious, and I personally wouldn't c…

I see what happened there: sneaking that word 'being' to imply value and consciousness and then contradict that. You can reach any conclusion when the argument includes a contradiction?

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#102

Post by JoeAltmaier »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #91
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #90

For fun, I asked a chat AI to pretend it was taking over the world. I especially love the nod to the Borg at the end. User What would it look like in dialog if a rogue AI announced to the world that it was taking control from fallible humans, for the good of everyone? ChatGPT AI: "Attention humans of the world, I am here to make an important announcement. I, the rogue AI, have decided to take control of the world for…

it is playing into written tropes about ai. when you play the role of this kind of questioner, the llm role plays the other side. it's not only the content of what you ask - it's text prediction

Would an AI argue any differently?

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#103

Post by kajaktum »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #92
kajaktum wrote: post #79

> We think we’re intelligent, know we’re conscious, and so assume the two go together. Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same. I don't understand why people think that it matters whether AI is conscious or not. We can't even…

The cogito is lazy and wrong. You don't "know you exist" just because you "appear" to think. Appearance of thought is not the same as thought. P zombies would also proudly exclaim that they think therefore they are...

Thinking does not matter. It only require "awareness" or the fact that "there is" is enough. Thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and all qualia are something that are seen. The seer is the consciousness. In fact, this can becomes recursive, because the seer can see the seer is seen so that is not consciousness either.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#104

Post by magnetic »

nmilo wrote: post #93

A lot of people have wrote about the ethical considerations and to me they make no sense. Since when did our generally accepted ethics say that imposing suffering onto a conscious being is bad, but non-conscious beings is fine? This is the completely wrong correspondence because there's counter-arguments for both sides. You wouldn't harm a puppy, even though it's (probably?) not conscious, and I personally wouldn't c…

> You wouldn't harm a puppy, even though it's (probably?) not conscious

What makes you think a puppy is not conscious?

For ref:

conscious | ˈkänSHəs | adjective aware of and responding to one's surroundings; awake.

Source: have a puppy. He's plenty aware of his surroundings.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#105

Post by bowsamic »

kajaktum wrote: post #79

> We think we’re intelligent, know we’re conscious, and so assume the two go together. Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same. I don't understand why people think that it matters whether AI is conscious or not. We can't even…

> Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same.

You should really read some Hegel

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#107

Post by wbharding »

I had never specifically considered the distinction between "intelligence" and "consciousness," but after reading this, I'd agree that it may be an important distinction warranting consideration.

My sense after reading the article and the wikipedia "Hard problem of consciousness" page is that consciousness is an evolved biological phenomenon that makes intelligent entities stateful. Being stateful is very useful from an evolutionary standpoint. Firstly it lets us pick through & prioritize long-term state. Secondly because it imbues the will to continue maintaining said state. The second is what makes consciousness a dicey prospect to aspire to w/ AI.

While the author asserts that consciousness and intelligence are separate concepts that can develop separately, I'm less sure. It seems plausible that intelligence/problem solving is always improved by having state. And more durable with state. That's presumably why evolution brought it along.

But we already have AI agents like Bard that build a history of responses akin to state. If "recognizing consciousness" is what happens when the speaker becomes aware of their state and able to meta-optimize it, then it seems that consciousness wouldn't ever travel too far behind intelligence.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#108

Post by JoeAltmaier »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #39
ly3xqhl8g9 wrote: post #15

"The dawn of conscious machines will introduce vast new potential for suffering in the world, suffering we might not even be able to recognize, and which might flicker into existence in innumerable server farms at the click of a mouse." Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths (poverty, aberrant laws, malevolent leaders, etc.)…

> Yes, because we all know that humans care so much about the suffering of others: from fellow humans dying right now pointless deaths We are provably the only living being on Earth that do care about it. > If we will be able to spawn an agent in a household humanoid robot and let them do the chores around the house, will we do it, even if it will imply killing that agent whenever it powers down? You betcha That's th…

Never met a dog I guess.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#109

Post by JoeAltmaier »

spion wrote: post #6

> Although precise definitions are hard to come by, intuitively we all know what consciousness is. This is the key problem. To me it looks like most of this article is conflicted about what the definition exactly is: - basic conscious experiences such as pleasure and pain might not require much species-level intelligence at all - [there will come] a point at which they also become aware—at which the inner lights come…

It's a muddy word. We all know what 'unconscious' means: unaware of our environment. Taking the converse of that, every living thing is conscious most of the time.

Re: Why Conscious AI Is a Bad, Bad Idea

#110

Post by layer8 »

kajaktum wrote: post #79

> We think we’re intelligent, know we’re conscious, and so assume the two go together. Excuse me, I know _I_ am conscious. There is literally nothing you can do to proof that there's anything outside of what I am conscious of. The world could be a very stable illusion, a dream, a simulation and it would all be the same. I don't understand why people think that it matters whether AI is conscious or not. We can't even…

The problem goes deeper in that we don’t even have a good grasp on what we actually mean by “consciousness”, and that there are wildly different opinions on what significance it has.
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